


love in the time of heroes

by sinequanon



Series: yours, mine, ours [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinequanon/pseuds/sinequanon
Summary: Before one of the most unlikely relationships ever to form on planet Earth, there were kids. Opinionated ones.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Tony Stark, Loki/Tony Stark, Loki/Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne
Series: yours, mine, ours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155455
Comments: 3
Kudos: 89





	love in the time of heroes

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who have read my work before, you know that some of my favorite things are rare to never-been-done-before pairings, crossovers, slightly twisting tropes, and (especially when I get stuck), playing around with style. This series will potentially have all of those things. 
> 
> As for this, it was never meant to be a fic at all. I have a couple of ideas that I'm playing around with and, in an attempt to get my thoughts in order, I decided to start writing all of the background details that actually happen _before_ the stuff I'm working on takes place. Like I said, this was never meant to be fic (it's not as polished or grammatically sound as my usual work), but I think it sort of turned into an actual story at some point anyway, so here we are. 
> 
> The first half is mostly from Jason's point of view and is basically a smushed together version of something vaguely canonical; the second part is from Peter's perspective, and has almost no similarities to canon.
> 
> Have fun!

PART I: Jason

Here's a secret only four people know: Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne kind of, sort of, almost had a thing, once upon a time.

Two of those people are the men themselves, obviously. The other two are Alfred Pennyworth and Jason Todd.

Bruce and Tony have known each other since the two of them were children, but Tony is just enough older than Bruce that they weren't truly close until a few months before Bruce disappeared. By the time Bruce came home, Tony had spiraled into his hardcore playboy phase, Bruce was dealing with his own trauma, and neither of them was in a place to help the other beyond the occasional proof-of-life phone call.

(One of these phone calls is Tony telling Bruce that he looks ridiculous dressed up like a giant bat. Bruce "accidentally" hangs up on him.)

Time passes, and things get a little better for both of them. They start to maybe circle the idea of dating again when Bruce goes to the circus one day and comes home with a traumatized orphan. Bruce and Tony—who both know about being traumatized orphans—silently agree to let Bruce focus on Dick for awhile. More time passes. Dick meets Tony once or twice at high society events, but never as anything other than Bruce's old friend and sometimes business rival.

Fast forward a few years. Dick is off trying to be his own person outside Bruce's (and Batman's) shadow, when B comes across a street kid trying to steal the tires off of the Batmobile. Bruce adopts said street kid, named Jason, and Tony (who can already sense a pattern forming) decides to show up for breakfast one morning while Jason is still settling in. By the time Bruce makes it to the dining room, Tony and Jason are halfway through their food and the kid is peppering Tony with questions about JARVIS.

(To this day, Jason refuses to tell Bruce exactly how Tony got him to open up. It was a combination of commiseration about not-great-but-we-love-them-anyway parents, and the wonders of British butlers. But really, it was Jason's blooming affection for Alfred, and Tony confiding to Jason that his AI was a memorial to a similar man—one who didn't have to love him unconditionally, but did so anyway. Also, there may or may not have been pointers on how Jason could have moved faster with those tires.)

Jason is a careful, observant kid, and he sees the way Bruce and Tony are drawn to each other, even though they never actually seem to do anything about it. Jason likes Tony and the way he gets Bruce to lighten up a little, so he spends a decent amount of time while he's bored on patrol wondering if maybe there's anything he can do to help bring them together. When he asks Alfred for suggestions, though, the older man just rolls his eyes and mutters about idiots with more money than sense. Soon after, Tony has to head back to New York and Jason never gets to put his fledgling plan into action.

Tony hasn't been to Gotham in a couple of months when things between Bruce and Jason start to get rocky. During a particularly rough patch, Jason finds out that his birth mother is an aid worker in Africa. He decides to go find her, and ends up being betrayed and brutally murdered by the Joker. Bruce handles it poorly, and he does an equally horrible job of accepting any sympathy from Tony.

(The two men won't speak again for over two years.)

Six months after Jason's death, Tony goes missing in Afghanistan. While he's being held captive, things are unknowingly changing for Bruce as well—Jason is resurrected and then taken by the League of Shadows. While Tony is becoming Iron Man, Jason is becoming a rage-filled almost-assassin, courtesy of the League and a dip in the Lazarus Pit.

Meanwhile, for better or worse, Bruce takes in Tim Drake, his third Robin. Tim is a brilliant but neglected young man who does his best to save Bruce Wayne from himself, and the rest of Gotham from an increasingly dangerous Batman. The two of them are awkward, but good for each other. 

Slowly, things improve.

Just about the time Bruce and Tony start speaking again, the Red Hood sets up shop in Gotham. Some dead criminals and a few heads in a duffel bag later, Bruce discovers the identity of the Red Hood but neglects to tell Tony that Jason is alive and back as a maybe-villain.

(Granted, Bruce neglected to tell _anyone_ about Jason's resurrection, but Tony always suspected that Bruce specifically kept it from him because Tony—who had methodically and emphatically destroyed his post-captivity enemies—would have wasted no time in coming to Gotham and repulsoring the Joker's face right off if he'd have known it was so important to Jason.)

As it happens, JARVIS is the one who discovers the truth during some routine surveillance. JARVIS tells Tony, who calls Alfred, who confronts Bruce at dinner that night in front of Dick, Tim, and a recently settled in Damian (Bruce's blood son, former member of the League of Shadows, and newest member of the Batfamily).

Alfred is shocked and appalled that he wasn't told that Jason was alive. Dick and Tim are shocked and appalled that Jason is the Red Hood. Damian is just surprised that no one else knew about Jason being alive and/or hellbent on revenge.

It takes a few months of back and forth hesitancy and misunderstandings (particularly between Jason and Bruce, with a side of a rage-fueled Jason trying to murder Tim once or twice) but the wayward, once-dead, former Robin is slowly coaxed back into the fold. Mostly.

Jason is actually visiting the Manor when the news comes about Loki and the Chitauri invasion. It's only afterwards, when the TV shows shaky footage of Iron Man carrying a nuke through a wormhole that he remembers _Tony_ , the man who Jason had kind of hoped might be a fixture in his life one day. He'd heard about Tony Stark and Iron Man a few times as Red Hood, but somehow it had never clicked for Jason just who Iron Man was until the moment he watched the man plummet towards the ground. He wanted to blame pit rage for his oversight, but one glance at Bruce told him that B still hadn't reached out to Tony, either. It was obvious that the others were still clueless, and if Jason hadn't already known about the connection between Tony and Bruce, he would have totally missed the way B's hand tightened around his phone as the reporters kept dissecting the battle footage.

Of course, because Bruce is an emotionally constipated idiot, he does precisely nothing to contact Tony after the other man's brush with death. Jason thinks about calling Tony himself, but he talks himself out of it every time, unsure if the man would even be willing to talk to him after all this time and...everything else.

A week after the invasion, the Justice League and a few affiliated heroes are meeting to discuss possible future invasion scenarios when the news breaks that Loki is being granted clemency due to extenuating circumstances. 

(These are the extenuating circumstances: Loki was tortured and mind-controlled after supposedly falling to his death, after receiving word that his last surviving sons [and youngest of six children] had both been killed. Children's deaths were bad enough, but according to Thor, the story was quite gruesome: Narfi had been magically turned into some sort of mindless beast, murdered his brother Vali, and then been slain himself in the ensuing carnage. Loki's loss of children/attempted suicide/torture trifecta had even some of his most vocal critics hesitant to be too harsh on the Asgardian, at least in public.)

According to the news, Tony Stark has agreed to house both Thor and Loki while the latter recovers. There is also talk of community service so that Loki can prove that he means no real harm to the people of Earth, and Thor can help booster goodwill toward aliens in general. It's a good deal, and as details of Loki's life emerge over the next few days, it is one generally supported by a sympathetic public. The ensuing PR campaign changes very little for the gathering of the Justice League and associates, though, who spend the next two weeks on contingency planning. Jason, however (who is only at the meeting because he was blackmailed by Dick), takes note of the way Bruce's shoulders tense at every mention of Loki in the Tony's tower. He knows that Dick and Tim and probably Diana have also noticed, but only Jason knows the real reason that Batman is upset—and it has nothing to do with possible security risks.

If Bruce hasn't already spent at least three hours _during this meeting_ trying to get around JARVIS's firewalls, Jason will buy a hat and eat it. That said, B won't get around those firewalls, but J might feel sorry enough for him that he gives him access to a kitchen cam or something.

(JARVIS does, in fact, feel sorry for Bruce. He gives the man visual-only access to the common floor cameras, and the ones for the floor where Thor and Loki reside, but only on weekdays between the hours of 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. Alfred absolutely does not catch Bruce recording that footage for later viewing on busy nights.)

By the time the Superhero Summit (Dick's words, not Jason's) is over, the Justice League has Bat-approved plans for dozens of possible invasions and/or doomsday scenarios, Dick and Tim are becoming increasingly suspicious of Bruce's behavior, and Jason has started reading up on Norse mythology.

That was why Jason might have been the only one not surprised by the news that Loki's long-lost sons—Sleipnir, Fenrir, and Jormungandr, taken away by Odin centuries ago—might still be alive, and that Tony, Loki, and the other Avengers are going on a superhero-type quest to find and rescue them.

(Jason's seen the way Loki looks at Tony when they're on TV together—like Loki is just so grateful to have someone who _sees_ him. Jason understands completely, because he felt the same thing in Tony's presence, in a way he never has with Bruce. One of his fondest memories was stepping into Tony's workshop for the first time, being overwhelmed by everything—and then being accosted by a robot with a tennis ball who insisted on playing fetch for the next ninety minutes. That afternoon with Tony and the bots and JARVIS, Jason couldn't help but bask in the glow of their makeshift family and want it for himself.)

Jason loves his brothers, and Bruce and Alfred, too, but he can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy for the way Loki and his kids—assuming they're found—might be getting what Jason has always wanted, and Bruce was too stubborn to reach for. But then again, maybe not, if Bruce's reactions over the last two weeks are any indication. Maybe Bruce is finally ready to reach out to Tony; the question is whether Tony is still willing to reach back.

(He is.)

PART II: Peter

Peter Parker didn't know how he got so lucky. He could hardly believe that he—out of all of the people on that stupid field trip—managed to wind up with superpowers, get mentored by Tony Stark, and (sort of) be a part of an intergalactic rescue mission. Yes, he'd kept his _extra_ extracurriculars from Aunt May for a while, and sure, he'd been in a ton of trouble once she found out about the whole Spider-Man thing, but on the other hand, he'd met Dr. Banner and Colonel Rhodes and the rest of the Avengers, so it was mostly worth being grounded for a couple of months.

The best part, though, was that he regularly got to spend time in the lab with Mr. Stark and Loki while they searched the galaxy for Loki's sons.

So far, it was mostly looking at star maps and doing math calculations while the Avengers did the actual superhero stuff, but Peter was getting closer to convincing Mr. Stark to let him come along on one of their space trips, so Peter could be patient. Sort of.

(He also played a lot of fetch with DUM-E and U, which, since they were sort of like Tony's kids, almost made Peter like one of the family, not that he would ever say that to Mr. Stark.)

It helped that they'd already found Sleipnir, tucked away in Odin's stables. Evidently, Odin had feared Ragnarok enough to take Loki's eldest son away, but not enough to put any effort into actually hiding him.

(Peter sometimes wondered if Odin had made Sleipnir so easy to find because he hadn't actually wanted to take the boy away. It wasn't an excuse, but maybe Loki's dad wasn't as bad as he seemed? Peter had gotten the chance to meet Loki's mom once, and she had been super nice, so surely, Odin wasn't all bad.

It had to be extra hard, though, feeling like you didn't belong your whole life, finally building a new family for yourself, and then having your kids taken away for crimes that they hadn't actually committed yet. And maybe they never would have committed them, until Asgard turned against them and gave them _reasons_ to want to destroy everything. When he'd talked with Ned about it, Ned had mentioned that it sounded like the plot to some old sci-fi movie he'd seen one time; he'd also agreed that the whole situation was horrible and probably unfair and that Peter should definitely not mention his thoughts to Loki.)

Sleipnir was pretty easygoing for a guy that had been trapped as an eight-legged horse for a thousand years, and that helped keep Loki mostly calm, too. And it was good, seeing the two of them interact like father and son, sort of like how Mr. Stark interacted with him sometimes. (Not that he'd ever say that to Mr. Stark.)

Still, it was an entirely common thing to go to Mr. Stark's lab at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and see Mr. Stark and Loki bent over their plans for visiting Planet So-and-So to get some intel on Fenrir or Jormungandr. Originally, Peter had put it down to Mr. Stark being a workaholic and insomniac and Loki being worried about his kids but the more he watched them when they were together, the more he wondered if there might be something else there, too.

Peter thought that maybe he was reading into things—after all, Mr. Stark couldn't come within five feet of another famous person without the tabloids saying that they were either getting married, secretly married, or getting divorced—until Sleipnir had made a comment about how much time his mother was spending with Mr. Stark and Loki threw a knife at him.

(It was evidently a sign of affection, though, because aliens are weird.)

So maybe there was something happening between Loki and Mr. Stark after all. JARVIS advised Peter to leave things be until after Fenrir and Jormungandr were found, but he also gave him the number of this guy named Jason Todd, for some strange reason.

(Peter never did get around to trying that number.)

Meanwhile, Sleipnir was almost twice Peter's age (adjusted for, you know, Asgardian-ness), and had grown up in a warrior culture, but he was also unfailingly calm and unabashedly curious about Earth, so he was a somehow weird mix of cool older brother and terrifying bodyguard.

Peter knew that Sleipnir sometimes followed in his human form as Spider-Man went on patrol. He'd considered (for maybe five minutes) that either Loki or Mr. Stark had asked him to, but Peter knew for a fact that both of them had his suit bugged to the point of ridiculousness, so there was no need for Sleipnir to follow him unless he wanted to. It was kind of nice, actually; almost like having a big brother.

After a couple of months of searching, they finally got a possible hit on Fenrir on some barren planet at the edge of the galaxy. The next few days were spent planning and refining the plan, and all thoughts about anything else were forgotten.

Peter didn't get to go along on the mission, but Loki managed to magic up a kind of radio so that Peter could at least listen in as things were happening. It was great, up until they actually found Fenrir.

It was probably a good thing that Peter had stayed at home; the noises that he managed to hear over the sounds of the Avengers' voices were not encouraging. With his enhanced senses, Peter could clearly hear the growling from a cornered Fenrir; the surprised yells when the wolf attacked; the pained cries as claws ripped into flesh.

Who knew how long Fenrir had been alone, stuck in his wolf form, unable to escape? Peter and Ned had come across a feral cat once in an alley; he remembered how gaunt and desperate the cat was, yet totally distrustful of the treats and affection the boys tried to give it. Peter could only imagine how much worse it would be for Fenrir, who had endured basically the same thing for hundreds of years.

At some point, communication went down (or, more likely, was cut off by Mr. Stark), so Peter had to wait until everyone was home to hear the rest of the story and see the damage for himself. Fenrir had clawed up both Thor and Captain America pretty badly before Loki had used his magic to restrain him, and then they'd had to haul a giant wolf back to the ship, keep him sedated all the way home, get him into the tower, and secure him somewhere safe until Fenrir came to his senses and changed back. 

Too bad no one quite knew when that last part would happen.

Also, the Hulk room was deemed insufficient for holding feral Fenrir, so Loki, Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner, and Thor created some sort of magical cage to hold a giant wolf. It was a cool combination of science and magic that would have had Peter otherwise drooling, except for the part where the cage (and the wolf in it, obviously) were housed _in the corner of_ _the workshop_.

(Where Fenrir could stare at him like he wanted to rip him limb from limb.)

Peter had heard once that animals could smell fear, and Fenrir wasn't exactly an animal, but he wasn't _not_ an animal right now, either. He could just imagine Fenrir listening to the rabbitting of his heart and thinking of what a tasty meal he'd make. He tried not to let either Loki or Mr. Stark know about his fear but somebody must have noticed because the next time he went to the lab DUM-E was standing sentinel by the cage with his fire extinguisher, and a usually-disinterested-in-science Sleipnir spent ninety minutes helping him tinker with his web shooters before Mr. Stark came down to work on his suit. Sleipnir excused himself with a pat to Peter's shoulder while Mr. Stark slid into the space left behind. The two of them worked for another couple of hours before Loki appeared with an early lunch and orders to come eat.

It was only when they were all settled into the penthouse that Peter realized two things: one, Mr. Stark practically had an arm around him; and two, he (and Loki and Sleipnir, now that he thought of it) had been casually touching him all day.

It was nice, but also kind of weird, until Peter also remembered that Thor did it, too, and it had all started after Fenrir had come to the Tower.

(He didn't dare ask Mr. Stark and Loki about it, but then one day Mr. Stark and Loki both hugged him [in public!] and he had to ask. Not Mr. Stark, of course; he asked JARVIS, later that night, in the privacy of his own room. JARVIS noted that the extra affection was likely a way to help Fenrir identify members of the family, but that made no sense because one, Peter wasn't related to Loki or Mr. Stark; and two, they were doing it even when Fenrir was not around. When Peter mentioned _that_ to JARVIS, the AI made a sound sort of like a sigh, and finally conceded that it was indeed a mystery.)

Two and a half weeks later, Fenrir turned back into a human, albeit one that occasionally had very sharp teeth. After thorough testing, he was let out of the cage and introduced to the rest of the Avengers. He mostly greeted them with polite head nods, but when he got to Peter he did the strangest thing: he pulled him in for a hug (not unlike Mr. Stark), smoothed down his hair (the same way that Loki liked to do), and patted his shoulder the same way Sleipnir did.

Peter wanted to ask why, but Fenrir was still recovering, so he decided it was just a strange Asgardian thing and let it go. Maybe he'd figure it out after they found Jormungandr.

**Author's Note:**

> I briefly mention that Loki has six kids, but only name five. Hela is Loki's third child, and queen of her own realm. She doesn't get mentioned in this because Loki knows where she is and is not worried about finding her.
> 
> Although it's not particularly relevant for this part, approximate ages for the kids are as follows: Loki's children Sleipnir, Fenrir, Hela, Jormungandr are in the human equivalent of their thirties; Narfi and Vali are around ten. The Batboys Dick, Jason, and Tim are in their twenties; Damian is nineteen. Peter is seventeen.
> 
> I have a couple of different approaches I want to take with this universe: one that's mildly angsty and one that's mostly humorous. I will probably do both, but the muse will determine which comes first.
> 
> One more thing: while I hate to do this while I'm tiptoeing into a new fandom, I am taking a year off from responding to comments. I will still enjoy and appreciate them (and I will respond, eventually, if asked a question), but please accept my virtual fist bump in lieu of a regular reply.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
